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The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) is a consortium of over 227 companies. Founded in 1994, the group was originally formed to adapt PCI technology for use in high-performance telecommunications, military, and industrial computing applications, but its work has now grown to include newer technologies. PICMG is distinct from the similarly named and adjacently-focused PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG).
Contents
- Background
- Specification naming convention
- Adopted specifications
- Design Guides
- Current standing committees
- ASI specifications
- Joint projects
- References
PICMG currently focuses on developing and implementing specifications and guidelines for open standards-based computer architectures from a wide variety of interconnects.
Background
PICMG's original mission was to provide extensions to the PCI standard developed by PCI-SIG for a range of applications. The organization's collaborations eventually expanded to include a variety of interconnect technologies for industrial computing and telecommunications.
In 2011, PICMG completed its transfer of assets from the Communications Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA). Since 2006, CP-TA had been a collaboration of communications vendors, developing interoperability testing requirements, methodologies, and procedures based on open specifications from PICMG, The Linux Foundation, and the Service Availability Forum. PICMG will form an xTCA promotional subcommittee to carry on the educational and marketing outreach formerly conducted by members of the CP-TA marketing work group.
Specification naming convention
For many years, PICMG used a numerical naming convention with specification being referred to as “PICMG X.YY”. Where X was used denoted differing form factors (“1” for slot card based single board computers, “2” for CompactPCI and “3” for AdvancedTCA) while YY was used to indicate incremental changes, option definitions or slight variation of a specification form its core specification. In 2003, PICMG added an acronym-based naming convention for its specifications to yield better results from internet search engines. Specifications are now often named ABCD.X where ABCD is an acronym of the specification. In this naming convention, base or main specification are denote with X=0 (i.e. ABCD.0) and PICMG subsidiary specifications are denoted X>0. PICMG subsidiary specifications represent how various options or variations of a based specification should be handled.
Adopted specifications
PICMG 1.0 - PCI/ISAPICMG 1.1 - PCI/ISA BridgingPICMG 1.2 - PCI onlyPICMG 1.3 - SHB ExpressPICMG 2.0 - CompactPCIPICMG 2.1 - CompactPCI HotswapPICMG 2.2 - CompactPCI VME64xPICMG 2.3 - CompactPCI PMC I/OPICMG 2.4 - CompactPCI IP I/OPICMG 2.5 - CompactPCI TelephonyPICMG 2.7 - Dual CompactPCIPICMG 2.9 - CompactPCI ManagementPICMG 2.10 - CompactPCI KeyingPICMG 2.11 - CompactPCI Power InterfacePICMG 2.12 - CompactPCI Software InteroperabilityPICMG 2.14 - CompactPCI MulticomputingPICMG 2.15 - CompactPCI PTMCPICMG 2.16 - CompactPCI Packet Switching Backplane (PSB)PICMG 2.17 - CompactPCI StarfabricPICMG 2.18 - CompactPCI RapidIOPICMG 2.20 - CompactPCI Serial MeshPICMG 2.30 - CompactPCI PlusIOCPCI-S.0 - CompactPCI SerialPICMG 3.0 - AdvancedTCA BasePICMG 3.1 - AdvancedTCA EthernetPICMG 3.2 - AdvancedTCA InfinibandPICMG 3.3 - AdvancedTCA StarFabricPICMG 3.4 - AdvancedTCA PCI ExpressPICMG 3.5 - AdvancedTCA RapidIOAMC.0 - AdvancedMC Mezzanine ModuleAMC.1 - AdvancedMC PCI Express and ASAMC.2 - AdvancedMC EthernetAMC.3 - AdvancedMC StorageAMC.4 - AdvancedMC Serial RapidIOIRTM.0 - Intelligent Rear Transition ModuleSFP.0 - System Fabric PlaneSFP.1 - iTDMEXP.0 - CompactPCI ExpressCOM.0 - Computer on ModuleCDG - COM Design GuideMTCA.0 - MicroTCAMTCA.1 - Air-cooled rugged MicroTCAMTCA.3 - Hardened conduction-cooled MicroTCADesign Guides
Physics Design Guide for Clocks, Gates & Triggers in InstrumentationCurrent standing committees
These groups represent standing committees which may result in new subsidiary specification, revisions to existing specification, reference materials for future PICMG committees or new PICMG specifications.
AdvancedTCA Base ExtensionsIntelligentRTMCOM Express Rev 2.0CompactPCI PlusIOCompactPCI SerialConduction Cooled MicroTCAPICMG 3.1 - AdvancedTCA Ethernet Rev 2.0Interconnect Channel CharacterizationxTCA for Physics. This committee has two sub committees:ASI specifications
The following specifications were developed by the ASI SIG which has now disbanded and has transferred these documents to PICMG.
ASI Core - Advanced Switching Core Architecture SpecificationASI PI-8 - ASI Protocol Interface #8ASI SDT - ASI Socket Data InterfaceASI SQP - ASI Simple Queuing ProtocolASI SLS - ASI Simple Load/Store (SLS) SpecificationASI Portal - ASI Portal SpecificationJoint projects
The PICMG has active liaisons with several industry bodies including the Service Availability Forum.